State Taxation of Trust Income – Supreme Court Rejects Aggressive Approach in Kaestner Decision

On June 21, the United States Supreme Court released its highly anticipated decision in North Carolina Department of Revenue v. Kimberly Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust (the Kaestner decision). In its opinion, the Supreme Court confirmed that a state may not tax income earned by a trust and not distributed out to a beneficiary where the trust’s only connection…

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Using Backdoor Roth IRAs to Boost Retirement Savings

For a variety of reasons, taxpayers looking to maximize their retirement savings should consider supplementing employer- based retirement plans with individual retirement accounts (“IRAs”), and especially Roth IRAs. For high-income taxpayers, directly contributing to a Roth IRA may not be possible, but Congress permits such accounts to be funded indirectly through a maneuver commonly called…

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Residential Real Estate Values

For developers and property owners alike, making sure your property’s valuation is correctly calculated could save you thousands of dollars in property taxes. Recently, a home in my neighborhood sold for 8% above asking, which was 10% over the property’s valuation. This is not an unusual occurrence. The recent lowering of the federal interest rate…

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Mitigating Risks During the Pre-Employment Process – An Employers Primer

Though employers are understandably curious about their prospective employees’ backgrounds, there are numerous federal and state laws that strictly limit which information employers can seek from job applicants, whether through job applications, interviews, and/or background/reference checks. In addition to needing a lawful basis for obtaining certain information from applicants, employers cannot make any employment-related decisions…

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Paying Inside Sales Employees on a 100 Percent Commission and/or Draw Basis: An Employer’s Primer to Mitigating Risks

All employers should be aware of the Massachusetts Wage Act. The Wage Act is intended to prevent employers from improperly withholding their employees’ earned wages. As detailed below, even a potentially good faith misunderstanding of the law can result in serious consequences for employers. Importantly, the Wage Act also subjects certain corporate officers (e.g., presidents…

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Civil Litigation Basics 5 — On the Front Lines – Trial Begins

This is the fifth article in a series on the basics of the civil litigation process. If you are interested in reading the first four installments, they are available on Fletcher Tilton’s website under the Knowledge Library. Preparing for Trial As discussed in earlier installments, the civil litigation process involves an assertion of claims by…

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